The Serpent's Shadow
by SailorSaiyan93
Summary: "#24-With a very vengeful nature, it won't give up the chase, no matter how far, once it targets its prey." Nurse Joy recounts the traumatic experience of her youth that took the life of one no older than she, and how she still suffers under its looming shadow.


**Note: This is sorta a strange one. I don't know how or why, but I just began writing this down. This is sorta what you could call an 'in-world' pasta as it takes place in the Pokemon universe. While I love a lot of 'in-world' pastas, I feel that a lot of them aren't taking into account that even discounting Ghost, Psychic, or even Dark Pokemon, the Pokemon universe can still be a terrifying place to live. Case and point here.**

 **The Serpent's Shadow**

 **Pokemon (c) of Nintendo**

I hated them.

"We hope to see you again!" I bid the young trainer farewell, he giving me something of a perplexing look, yet all the same, he left with his four Pokemon, one of which granted me a rather unpleasant surprise.

While they weren't exactly uncommon around here, and so far, those I have treated and healed have been rather well behaved; I can't bring myself to bestow the same affection towards them.

Ekans…

Now, please don't get confused. I am not one of those nurses that refuse to treat a Pokemon just because of my personal distaste for it or its classified typing. In fact, as odd as it sounds, I'm one of the few around here that actually adore Ghost Pokemon! I still have fond memories of exploring some of the nearby fields after dark and playing hide and go seek with whichever Ghastly I would happen to come across. Even after all these years after I caught him, I STILL can never figure out where he hides…

Yet, I'm getting off topic. I know it doesn't make much sense to say this, but I both despise Ekans and don't. I hate the Pokemon and only because of my duty as a nurse do I even tolerate touching their scaly, legless forms, yet I don't hate them at the same time. I can't stand them, but they themselves aren't to blame. No, my hatred for them isn't because of what they did to me, but more due to one in particular that I came across.

Or rather, it USED to be an Ekans.

Imagine if you will…

Kanto, summer, and on a normal, standard Wednesday afternoon, and me lying out in the yard wearing just a simple pair of overalls and a red, polka-dot shirt, just idly gazing up at the passing, rolling clouds. It had just been after the war, and Arceus had decided to claim my mother when I couldn't even talk, and then my father when he was drafted to fight. This left me with nowhere to go but my grandmother's house in Viridian City. This was still a good few months before the current champion of Kanto had unveiled that the city that served as the proud 'Gateway to the Indigo Plateau' was actually the hideout of a group of underground, Pokemon abusing gang members, and I had been out of town when that whole fiasco happened on my own journey. Yet that was to come later. At that time, I was only one month away from turning into a ten-year-old girl, and I was going on a Pokemon journey, yet not for the reason you might think.

If you haven't guessed by now from my previous description of my work today, I'm a Jenny, and since I could talk, I wanted to take on the family tradition. My grandma told me over and over again that just because I was born a Jenny didn't mean that I had to be a nurse, that I could do whatever I wished to do and take whichever path I deemed to be the one for me. While I appreciate greatly that the family practice wasn't forced on me, I made it clear that I was going to be a nurse because I WANTED to be a nurse. Which of course, got me wanting to go on the 'Rite of Passage' trip around Kanto not to battle or challenge the gyms, but to document and learn all I could about the very creatures surrounding me.

So what better place to start than working in the local Pokemon Center? Well, work is sort of an overstatement. The only REAL job I had in there at that age was just gathering some spare berries from the nearby areas just outside the city just in case they were running short on ingredients for potions and antidotes. Though I could just be attributing it to my desire to actually wanting to make a contribution, but I like to think I gave them a good amount of help by doing my 'berry runs'.

Yet it was during one of those runs that I had developed hatred for the common, poisonous Pokemon.

It was around that time I was growing bored of cloud watching that my grandmother called me inside, saying that she was heading into the Center to take her post, and that I had 'better get a good haul' that day. I promised that I would, and like any other time, headed straight off for the surrounding thicket. Berries are rather easy to come by if you know where to look. That and being that a good amount of Pokemon are omnivores by design, wherever they were eating or…sometimes doing their business, then berries would be somewhere close.

It was when I had finished collecting the last Oran berry I could reach was when I met him…for the first and last time.

Just as I was getting up, a sudden amount of weight was thrust into my side, knocking me down and causing me to nearly land atop of the bag full of berries I had spent nearly a good hour collecting. I turned to give whomever had just ran into me a piece of my mind, yet whatever anger I held quickly diminished upon seeing who had exactly ran into me.

A boy I assumed to be around my age, dressed in the typical attire of the average boy that had just begun his Pokemon journey: average t-shirt and shorts with a backwards cap and simple running shoes.

"So-Sorry." He choked out. "It…it got me."

"Got you?" I asked. "Who got you?"

He was wheezing and presumably growing weaker by the second, I just then realizing the cause of his apparent exhaustion. His leg…oh dear Arceus, his leg…

His leg was incredibly red and swollen just bellow his knee, rather sizable boils developing around what appeared to be a bite of some kind, the two, puncture wounds indicating that whatever had gotten ahold of him had given him a good amount of venom running through his system.

I was at a loss: here I was, a young girl out in the woods picking berries and while I had wanted to become a nurse, when the opportunity presented itself, I was struggling to even begin talking to this boy that obviously needed help. "O-Okay." I began. "You…you need to calm down." I assured him, kneeling down on my knees to take a closer look at his wound, it oozing a clear, yet thick substance. "When did this happen?"

"Just…just a few minutes ago." He gagged, a large amount of saliva mixed with traces of vomit dripping from his mouth. "I…I stepped on its eggs. It…It was an accident! I didn't mean to!"

"What eggs? What Pokemon did this to you?" I prodded, yet his expression grew from being wracked with pain to a dismal, hopeless look.

"It doesn't matter now…"

"What? Of course it matters! I need to know what Pokemon did this to you so that my grandma and aunts can give you the right kind of antidote for your bite!"

"No…" he wheezed, pushing my hand back as I tried to take his. "It'll follow me here. Just like it did from Route 23…"

Whatever assurance that I could aid this boy was beginning to dwindle, the area nearing the entrance to the Pokemon League a place I was forbidden to travel to because of the plethora of rather powerful and incredibly dangerous Pokemon that dwelt there. Whatever had taken a bite out this boy had been strong enough to nearly render is leg completely useless, it soon possibly needing an emergency amputation if he didn't get some antidote. Oh Arceus, what exactly did this kid invoke the wrath of for him to earn this?

I began to hoist him up on my shoulder, leaving my bag on the grassy floor. I could always come back for it later, but this poor boy was going to possibly die if I didn't do something.

"No!" he screamed. "It's too late now! I…" he soon couldn't speak, a small fountain of discolored bile spilling from his throat. "I'll be dead in less than a minute by this rate…"

"You don't know that!" I told him, still struggling to get him to at least get on my back. "If you don't let me help you, you WILL be dead soon though!"

"It'll follow us…it followed me all the way here when it bit me…it won't have any problem in hurting you too."

"What followed you?! Why would it hurt-"

I stopped talking, just now realizing that a peculiar sound was growing ever closer.

Hissing. Loud, sporadic, yet from the sound of it, very agitated hissing.

"It's here…"

The next part is something of a blur, mainly due to it taking years and years of therapy to finally be able to talk about it, yet what I DO remember is that the boy used whatever amount of strength he had left to push me into some thick, nearby bushes, I of course beginning to scramble to my feet, yet only got as far as getting on my hands and knees before my entire body seized up in fear at what slunk out of the thick overgrowth.

Long, large, and flicking its tongue, the largest snake Pokemon that I had ever seen slithered into the clearing, it easily able to tower over the boy and me if I was still standing there. At first, I wasn't sure of what I was looking at, yet my confusion was short lived upon it unveiling its bright, patterned hood.

Arbok.

I still regret not swallowing my fear and leaping out of the bushes to protect him. I still regret not even trying to go and get help, yet ultimately, I think even at that young age, I knew that there was no way that I could help him, he probably knowing that as well.

The behemoth reptile and dying child gazed into each other's eyes for what I believed to be near an eternity before his head slumped slightly, the Arbok taking this opportunity, or possible surrender to it, and clasping its fangs down on his small throat. He screamed, mainly due to the reflex, hot, fresh tears streaming down his cheeks while I found myself beginning to do the same. The Arbok only wrapped one coil around its catch, seeing as there was no need to waste its strength on something that was already too weak to fight back, let alone run away. He opened his now bloodshot eyes to look at me, for what reason, I don't know. I think it might've the only way he could say 'sorry'…or perhaps he was telling the only other person in that area 'goodbye'.

His eyes soon rolled in the back of his head, his entire form soon slumping over and becoming motionless as his chest steadily began to grow less and less active until both the Pokemon and I were certain he stopped breathing. The Arbok uncoiled its catch, I just then seeing that a present lump in its lower region signified that it wasn't planning on making use with the boy's corpse, and upon it turning its head to the bushes, it also saw that it had a captive audience.

My heart nearly stopped dead in my chest, I knowing that I was completely at this creature's mercy, or lack thereof…yet it didn't make any move. In fact, it displayed little to no interest in me at all. Yet before slinking back to wherever it had crawled from, and I know that it makes no sense, but I swear on my life, I saw that thing SMILE at me. Whether it was because it was assuring me that I was lucky I hadn't invoked its wrath, or because it knew it was far stronger and larger than I and would have no trouble doing to me what it had done to that boy…but to me, it's smile bore a sick sadism to it, as if it were silently asking me if I enjoyed the show it put on.

I didn't even bother getting my berry bag, I rushed back to Viridian city and after I had managed to get to a point where I could control my sobs, I told my grandmother what had happened, which brought the police, which then brought the news crews. It wasn't a large event, as in retrospect, people go missing and, unfortunately in this case, die all the time, children not excluded, yet I was at the mercy of several reporters, mainly local, trying to get me to talk about what I had seen. Arceus rest my grandmother for shutting them all up.

I did begin my Pokemon journey, but only after a good few years of therapeutic sessions with a psychiatrist and his Hypno. He didn't tell it to erase my memories or anything, but gave me a variety of coping skills to both be able to talk about, and accept what I had witnessed and that it was beyond my control. Arceus rest his soul too, yet for all his efforts, he didn't fix everything. He couldn't.

I had achieved my dream of becoming a nurse, and have long since overcome my fear of both Arbok and its pre-evolution, but I can't learn to love them. I can't. I know that I am being unfair for my hatred for them, as they are merely just creatures of instinct, yet every time I have to put my permanently rooted prejudice aside, I refuse to look at their eyes. It's ridiculous, I know, yet I'm afraid I'll see it again. That one day, when I've finally been able to put my fears to rest, I'll come across that piercing, mocking glint of satisfaction at the distress it'll cause me when it sinks its fangs in my throat again, and when I'm writing in agony on the floor, before I slip away from this world completely…it'll present me with a satisfied, cruel smile.

 ** _Transfixing prey with the face-like pattern on its belly, it binds and poisons the frightened victim.-Gold_**

 ** _With a very vengeful nature, it won't give up the chase, no matter how far, once it targets its prey.-Silver_**

 **Note: Though I know that this isn't usually the place to put things like this, yet with 'Lullaby Cave', an excellent example of an 'in-world' pasta being here, I thought that maybe I could share this with you all and see what you think. I will be getting back to my other stories now, so please give your input!**


End file.
